


A Rare Bond

by Astraya



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Adopted Children, Parent-Child Relationship, Sparklings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 19:38:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3741121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astraya/pseuds/Astraya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>IDW MTMTE based. Someone had a newborn (sparkling) on the Lost Light and they die, Megatron ends up bonding with the baby and loving her. Fluff, no plot, rambling vomit of feelings and sensations and babies. This is basically my favorite thing ever to write and I write it for myself and my own amusement only. I read over it twice for glaring errors but, no proof reader, I am sure it contains errors but it’s good enough. Rated PG (I guess).<br/>On tumblr: http://starkformer.tumblr.com/post/115459787335/a-rare-bond</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Rare Bond

Megatron frowned hugely at the baby laying in the warmed medical pod, she cried but her sound was weak, lacking the gusto of a healthy baby as if the child had accepted that crying no longer summoned her parent and the comfort that came with him. Her tiny limbs moved without any finesse, bitty hands kept reaching up as if begging shadows to cuddle her. Her spark was pulsing through her chest, a beautiful golden light, the loss of her surviving parent had spiraled the baby into pediatric spark collapse. In three days she had not nursed and intravenous fluids dripped slowly into her bitty wrist where a butterfly needle was tenderly wrapped with gauze and medical tape to hold it in place.

The “co-captain” of the Lost Light moved across the floor and leaned over her sterilized crib. Her cheeks were sore with red lines where she cried and cried and had begun to corrode the sensitive unprotected alloy of her silver cheeks. He stared waiting to feel some wave of sickening grief but it did not come. He had seen so much… death and perhaps at one point he had loved the anger, the hatred, the cold calculating way he churned over the galaxy taking what it had to fuel his war. He had embraced the demon that was needed to survive and win. For so long he had consumed himself with a single battles, planning for a hundred thousand years an explosion of violence and Cybertronian life that would last days before another lull. He would think only of Optimus Prime and crushing him, his own dreams began to fall away, replaced by the marching sound of hardened armor and Soundwave’s void-voiced reports. He had drank blood and liked it, he had forgotten the subtle reasons in preference for pure hatred of Optimus Prime and unbending want of ultimate victory.

Megatron made a deep sound as he studied the peeping sparkling and reached down, pressed his palm over her small chest. He looked giant as he did, his hand was almost the size of her torso. He didn’t put weight on her but he pressed enough she would feel some sense of being swaddled and he felt the hot trembling flicker of her confused spark dance its energy across his palm. Her life source exposed and frightened, searching desperately for her decimated parental link. Her spark was burning up like a hungry fire, consuming itself in her upset.

Megatron didn’t have a clear thought, he hadn’t come here to try to save her or check on Ratchet. He just came. He simply had not seen a Cybertronian baby in a long time and a little girl, no less, a tiny femme. He had heard she wasn’t going to survive. Some part of him felt like he owed this infant a moment of his time. Her crying soothed under his palm but she made small hiccup noises as she tried to catch her breath, her body demanding for the heat to lessen but without her parent to help regulate her internal systems through their spark-link she was left to suffer. He wasn’t sure if he felt something pull within his own spark or if it was just the absolute helplessness of this little life beneath his gray servo that fought for recognition.

“She won’t eat.” Ratchet said from behind.

Megatron turned, he hadn’t heard Ratchet come into the main area from a side room. He was drying his hands quickly with a towel, which he tossed into a bin streaked with greenish-black oil to be washed. “That is the first sign she will die?” He asked.

“It’s one of them,” The doctor nodded. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, I came out because she stopped crying and that concerned me. She’s weak, in another three days or so she’ll pass away and their isn’t a single thing I can do to change that. It’s just keeping her comfortable but she’s inconsolable and I don’t blame her. Your entire body breaking down is hardly pleasant.”

Apparently not, Megatron thought as the fussing baby had stopped fussing. “May I hold her?”

“Of course,” Ratchet gestured. “It would be a nice gesture and pass along that anyone who can be bothered to come and hold her should do so, even if we’re strangers, being held by someone is more comforting than being left alone in that pod and I can’t sit with her all day, I have other patients. I take that back, anyone but Whirl is welcome to hold her.”

“You seem rather resigned to her fate.” Megatron lifted her up with a feeling of trepidation and seated himself nearby, she stared at his face though he wasn’t sure she really knew what she was looking at, she just looked. She was so small and weighted little, her presence hardly registered against the crook of his arm. He pushed the energy of his spark more outward and held her against it, he knew infants absolutely loved the spark energy of their parents and perhaps his would be some comfort for a few seconds or minuets. He expected nothing, he was an educated man, he understood the basics of Cybertronian newborns even when they did not interest him personally. A stranger was nothing to a child, his energy was alien and not part of her yet she took several big yawning breaths making a cute nnn baby coo and Megatron felt something he had not thought possible. It shocked him. The baby’s spark pulsed against his and, without his permission, his spark seemed to extend something to the infant- a kind of helping hand. The once tyrant felt the baby’s spark sputter trying to adjust, pause its humming undulations, and stumble towards his energy. Part of him screamed to toss her away before anything could be forged but another part of him was baffled with primal curiosity and refused to believe what he was feeling was true. An orphan reaching out to a stranger? Unheard of. He felt her spark begin to mimic the slower pulse of his own and listened to the sad and overworked tiny clicks and whirls as her calming spark allowed her tiny body a moment of relief. He remained very still, fearing even a sharp intake would disturb this, “Doctor.” He said softly, as if his voice would upset the baby who was sleepily inspecting metallic grooves on his chest. “Doctor.” He said with more conviction.

Ratchet looked up from his computer array, “What?”

“Our sparks seem to be communicating.” Megatron said slowly.

Ratchet almost went back to what he was doing but did a double-take and quickly came over, “Stay as you are,” He had trained long enough that he knew what certain spark-pulses sounded like. He could tell the health of most adult’s sparks by listening though the craft was old now and unneeded under piles of scanners and medical tools. Still he found the practice worth using, especially on newborns and the young. Her spark had begun to make a pitched whine as it worked harder and harder until it would eventually burn out, pop like a old lightblub and she would die. Ratchet hoped that would happen before she suffered too greatly with pain as her body began to flare and spasm, a baby so young couldn’t moderate her own energy input or output, couldn’t regulate her spark, her heating or cooling, the processing of minerals, oils, and energon. He listened with a tool to enhance his hearing, touching the cold silver orb over her armor-bare back where delicate back struts pushed outward in neat silver bumps. Each small circle was so delicate and intricate he would have to operate on it under a microscope like a miniature galaxy of soft alloy fitted into equally soft sliding jostling parts and gearwork. Ratchet listened past her rapidly thumping center-chamber and could even hear Megatron’s because she was so small, a loud slow thud that boomed through the baby’s entire body. He listened for that high pitched mechanical whine, the spark-cry of being overstressed and without relief. He did not hear it. Ratchet moved his tool, her spark was making a very different sound. It had slowed incredibly. The good doctor straightened up, “I need to take her, I can hear your body through hers.” Ratchet carefully lifted the baby away from Megatron and her eyes shuttered rapidly from her half-sleep before opening accusingly, the baby erupted into screams. “I know baby, I know.” Ratchet returned her to her crib. “Children have a sixth sense for doctors, they’re born hating you.” He lay her on her tummy in her warm oval crib, a safe-spot for the lonely baby that tried to mimic soothing sounds and temperatures. Ratchet found it worked wonders for newborns who had their parents but tiny orphans, no, it was good for nothing but keeping her from rolling onto the floor. He listened to her spark and center-chamber without Megatron’s cascading effect in the background.

“What’s happening to her?” Megatron felt… tension. He was not an anxious man, his tolerance was very high. Yet he felt anxious. The baby screaming upset him, he didn’t know why but he knew he was upset. It wasn’t the noise or even the fact she screamed, it was something behind it and he swam through mental mist trying to find exactly why he felt nervous. He found he had stood and come closer, his chest ached in a way he had felt throughout his life during times of intense stress, mostly in years before he started the rebellion, years even before he became a gladiator, and yet some part of him knew this was not entirely his upset. As soon as recognized it wasn’t his nervousness he breached the fog of anxiety, it was the baby’s anxiety. The baby was upset, he was upset because this child did not want to be parted from him. A secondary wave of information came through him from his unhappy spark: she was very hungry, weak, vulnerable, she was cold, starved for affection, and didn’t feel safe. Confused. She didn’t like the way the room smelled. She wanted to be held tightly. She wanted to hear something familiar.

“I need a bottle.” Megatron said stupidly. He sounded unsure of his own request.

Ratchet picked the infant up quickly and nearly thrust her at Megatron, frowning hugely, “Her spark is stabilizing, I don’t know how but you need to hold her, bathe her in your spark. It might not be orthodox but I doubt you care, I think you stand a chance of saving her life. I’ve never heard of someone being able to bond with an orphan, blood is Primus with sparklings and you two don’t share a drop but something is happening here. So please.”

He collected her quickly, put her to his chest. “I need a bottle.”

“I heard you the first time. Sit down, I’ll get you whatever you want.” Ratchet snapped.

Megatron did, he only knew spark merges in a sexual sense and those he had not done fully because he had never wanted a true link with the likes of, say, Starscream. He had never wanted a true link with anyone. It was not a personal dislike for those he had lust for or even cared for, it was a choice for himself that had nothing to do with those outside of him. He didn’t want to completely share himself with anyone. Touching sparks, exchanging energy- it had been a baseline stroking of ego and sex and for pleasure only, for pure and pointless arousal. It made overload more intense. He steeled his jaw as he pushed his spark’s silver-blue energy over her the only way he knew how, without any real direction, more a forceful dunk than anything else. He expected her to shriek and cry under this unwanted assault but she had stopped crying since transferred from Ratchet back to him and didn’t start again. She barely even moved once in his hold, she closed her optics and drifted into a half-sleep with her cheek resting against his chest. Megatron felt her spark continue to speak to his but with none of the arousal or sensitivity he expected, it was entirely different and he was damn grateful it was. As she had no coherent memories to give him or personality traits to reveal the melding was of life forces and needs, he picked up on a few sensations of loss that told him the infant was aware she had someone who she wanted who was not present anymore but she was so new, so young, that this feeling had no coherent meaning. He felt her body trying to communicate far more than her mind, wanting him to know she had needs that were being sorely ignored, the biggest being her hunger and her want for comfort.

He felt her body had been overheating and then rapidly cooled and was too cold. The temperature was starting to stabilize because his own body’s subconscious knowledge told the newborn’s what to do.

“Doctor, I need a blanket and that bottle please?” Megatron was falling quickly for the child with every sensation of a parent who had just finished birth or budding and finally this new life was physical and delivered into their arms. His sense of independence and need for solitude was forgotten in favor of comforting this tiny baby who nuzzled against his spark for his care and only his care. He became intensely aware she would accept no one else and the lost man who had found his creations stripped from him and soiled suddenly was holding something brand new that he could fight for. He had ultimate power over this baby’s ability to live or die, she pawed at the door to his spark to be let in and he threw the door open and accepted with a wholeness that felt natural.

“Give me a minute!” Ratchet said crankily.

Megatron rocked her gently, he felt whatever was being transcribed between them had finished. He could feel her body, her spark, her tiny life force curling against him as if a new limb. He wasn’t fully aware of the change because he accepted it like some nutrient that his body was starved for. “I know you understand what it feels like to be old and tired Ratchet but I’ve never wanted to croon over anything in my entire life and I already feel the want rising in me.”

“ I won’t expose you if you sing to a baby,” Ratchet shook his head. He held out a warmed baby bottle and Megatron accepted it with a nod of thanks. “Are you bonding to her?” He watched another nod. “Are you certain because the chances of that happening between a child and a complete stranger are… astronomical.”

“A blanket, doctor. Perhaps my age and my life spent in war has some kind of familiarity to her carrier, he was an old warrior, and we both have unique sparks as they say,” Megatron adjusted her slightly, having to do so three times before he felt she was in a position that looked correct to his ruby optics but also felt comfortable. “Here is the moment of truth.” He said with solemn commitment but truly he felt no doubt. He put the fake nipple-like end between her soft lips and squeezed the plastic bottle’s soft underbelly, forcing a pre-processed energon to flow. The baby startled, her eyes opened and rolled with tired confusion from her finally warm and safe rest. She realized she tasted her energon-milk, Megatron felt a moment of clarity and want that was sadly frantic, starving. The baby started to suckle, making a content sound as she swallowed, pale energon wet the corners of her tiny mouth.

“I can’t believe it,” Ratchet collapsed into the chair beside him. “She’s nursing, she’s going to make it.” He had been fully prepared for the baby’s slow, painful death. It felt like a trick as he begun to entertain the idea that he didn’t have to watch this baby die and pointlessly try to make her comfortable. He had been dreading the coming days with all his spark and mind but prepared himself to face it as a professional, to give the child the care she needed to suffer as little as possible. She would not have been the first sparkling that died under his care because of being orphaned. Cybertronian children were so bonded to their parents by a spark-link, a link of birth, that the death of those caretakers was shattering to them and deadly to most infants who lost that external regulator. Ratchet had not forgotten being asked (several times) for a blanket, he frankly didn’t have one on hand.

Megatron grinned wistfully, showing a fang, “Her optics are beautiful.”

Ratchet made a single sound of bitter humor, “Yes, a familiar purple isn’t it?” The baby girl’s eyes were a violet nearly identical to the Decepticon badge.

He ignored Ratchet, he’d grown immune the dumb comments of Autobots who assumed everything about him revolved around his past and that his past was only that of leader of the Decepticons. Even those who knew this wasn’t so struggled to put that idea into actual practice. He didn’t mind the symbol he had become, he didn’t mind that he was seen as his cause (even when he had denounced it). He wouldn’t share that he liked the child’s eyes because he had loved that color long before he chose it for his rebellion’s symbol. “I’ve never… nursed a newborn before.” He said distantly.

Ratchet dared to pat Megatron’s shoulder, “Well, she’s yours now. She’ll die without you. What are you going to do, you can’t-”

He cut him off. “To answer a present exigency,” Megatron nodded. “Yes.”

Soon

Megatron found his routine smoothly adjusted to the new addition in his life. He did not find caring for the baby taxing, grading, or annoying. He felt her simple joy, he felt how she squirmed and bloomed in their bond when he held her. He felt a strange world through the impressions of a newborn. Her wonder at shadows, shapes, colors, sounds, light playing across the ceiling, smells. Everything was tactile and raw, pursing without concept. So much had no meaning yet she observed it, followed it, reached for it with jerky limbs that didn’t obey her properly. She became more aware of her own body though was not entirely able to connect limbs and their movement to her, sometimes he caught her wagging her own arms and watching as if it was a magic show.

She was mostly aware of him. Megatron didn’t have a name but he was a feeling pure and comforting. He was safety, comfort, food, contact. His touch soothed. His voice became the first thing she could properly identify, a thought that he could feel link in her mind from his sound as she realized what that sound was, and that this sound belonged to him. His voice. My caretakers voice. He could call to her from another room and listen to her happy squeals.

She barely cried, she had no need. The Cybertronian parent’s link to her in their powerful bond of the spark told him what she needed long before she had to scream to make it known. He didn’t like her given name and he felt she was so new, so young, that he had the right to give her a name of his choosing as he would his own baby. She would have no memories of anyone but him, in every way she was his and even against fact he began to see himself reflected back in her worried violet eyes. He traced his thumb across her forehead and down her delicate silver cheek and was in love. Her name would come, he told himself, from some deep realization or misplaced inspiration but he was eager to find a name that seemed right for them. His baby needed a proud name yet she seemed so very sweet to him, feminine, worrying, gentle and so he didn’t want the name to be too proud or very aggressive. He wanted something smooth and particular.

Megatron recharged with the baby on his chest, he magnetized her so she would stick to him and he could rest without fear she would roll off him and bump her unprotected body . He walked around the Lost Light following his duties which he was well aware were mostly designed to keep him busy. Stupid complaints, bickering, lost items, vandalism, roommates gluing one another to recharge slabs or rubbing energon rations on less than appealing body parts. His meetings with Rodimus and Ultra Magnus were always accompanied by his usually snoozing baby, she stayed strapped to his chest snug and over his spark.

She cooed and tried out new sounds, she giggled and smiled at nothing in particular though he found he could play with her and this was intensely joyful for both of them. She began to focus on his face more-and-more, a smile suddenly pulled a smile from his newborn, tickling her made her wiggle and giggle and he found he’d chuckle with her pure joy, infected by it. When he smiled and she smiled back that he felt victorious and humbled all in the same. How something so damn simple could make her happier than he ever remembered feeling in all his long life refreshed the jaded Cybertronian. He lay her over his boxy thighs towards the evening when he retired to his habitation suite and played peak-a-boo and loved how terribly concerned she looked when he put his servos over his face and how instantly that worry went away, eyes widened, toothless mouth smiled when he uncovered his face. Megatron cuddled her close to his chest and crooned every lullaby he knew, he held her bottle so she could nurse and stared at her, scanning her details to his deepest memory. He loved the way she would become perfectly still, her purple eyes softened and half-closed as she made a suckling sound with every swallow that he adored. This little urp of baby love.


End file.
